NEXT
GENERATION
4 BALLETS—3 WORLD PREMIERES
Interview with Jorma
Elo
Jorma on becoming a
choreographer.
Listen now
How would you describe your creative
process?
Listen to details on Jorma's creative process
Maybe other people should describe my creative process. But like I
told you, I love to be creative, be part of the unknown. Especially
as this evening [of the Next Generation program] has a lot
of creativity. It is three world premieres in one evening. That is
very unusual. Thanks to Mikko, that excitement is there.
Can you give a brief description of
your work?
The ballet came for me in this case from the music and the dancers
and myself, how I'm feeling in the moment of the creation, how I
relate to the situation and the elements that are present in that
moment, music, dancers.
How many dancers perform in the piece?
How many men? How many women?
I think its 3 women and 10 men (could be 12). We worked for the
first time on the piece in September when we did most of it and in
February we will continue with the work.
What was your inspiration for the
piece?
I was making a dance film for the Finnish TV 2 years ago and we
where working with the dancers in the blue screen studio for 1
week, 9 hours a day. It became a very surreal, dizzy experience
being surrounded by just blue for all that time. Dancing in the
blue, you would start to see dimensions that where not there.
I'm told that the music you selected is
Eugene Ysaye, what promoted this selection?
Listen to Jorma discuss music selection
We also use music from the composer Bernard Herrman from
Vertigo--he did a lot of music for Hitchcock movies. I wanted two
very different kinds of music that would both have a feeling of a
subtle level of mystery and suspense. "Subtle Level of Mystery and
Suspense", how about that as a title?
Listen to Jorma speak on his piece featuring all four
choreographers
Can you talk a little bit about your
experiences working with Boston Ballet dancers and Mikko
Nissinen?
Boston Ballet is fabulous, the dancers are so good. I'm so happy
that I have been able to work with them with all the creations so
far. Everybody is so supportive of the creative process, always
willing to try different things to make things work. It’s
really a fantastic dream I'm living--being to able to work like
this with Boston Ballet. It is, of course, because of Mikko that
I'm here being able to do this, given all these fabulous people to
work with. He is just making the company better all the time.
Jorma's thoughts before a World Premiere.
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"About the Choreographer" on Jorma Elo
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Generation